


It Would Be Life

by Isilanna (Betazoa)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Episode: Rejoined, F/F, F/M, Symbionts, Trill - Freeform, f/f - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-10-31 12:09:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betazoa/pseuds/Isilanna
Summary: Alternate ending to the episode "Rejoined"Written for EldritchTribble as part of the Trek Rarepair Swap - Round 10** Epilogue added **





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EldritchTribble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchTribble/gifts).



For the first time in several years since her Joining, Jadzia doesn't know who she is when she kisses Lenara. She's Torias, loving his wife no matter what body the Kahn symbiote resides in. She's Curzon, remembering the agony of self-denied longing when he'd seen his most recent former host's wife by chance at a diplomatic function only months after their eternal separation. She's Audrid, shaking her head and praying not to make a mistake like this when she'd already made a sacrifice of the same magnitude to protect her people's greatest treasure. She's Emony, and this is great fun and it's hardly the first time Dax has broken a silly taboo. She's Tobin, finally understanding why people say it feels so good to be bad. She's Lela, and she doesn't have anyone else's wisdom to fall back on so she's got to make the right choices for herself and for future Daxes.  
  
She pulls away from the kiss with a gasp at that thought: _future Daxes_. She's sobered by the thought of no more Daxes if she goes down this road, forbidden to those chosen for the honor of Joining. It had always seemed a small price to pay, to bear the weight of a past you had to let go of, even when it would be so tempting to step back into the spots you used to wear.  
  
Jadzia's only telepathic connection is with her own symbiont, but she's certain she can read Lenara's thoughts as clearly as a Betazoid -- or perhaps it's because she knows this woman, this stranger who isn't strange to her at all. Their thoughts, their feelings are one and the same: hesitance, yearning, wistfulness. They aren't Torias and Nilani any more, and they can't afford to pretend they are. It would simply cost too much.  
  
But days go by and no matter how she tries to distance herself emotionally, the connection between them only strengthens. They are more compatible than Torias and Nilani ever were, and it's like magnetism drawing them together. Lenara is not only beautiful, she's brilliant and clever and has a devastating sense of humor; she's everything Jadzia could ever want in a woman.  
  
When the accident happens and Lenara is trapped in the Defiant's engine room, for the first time Jadzia thinks she understands when Nilani must have felt that fateful day two lifetimes ago. Heart in her throat, she insists that Eddington give her time for a rescue, then steels herself to walk through literal flames for the woman she loves.  
  
The engine room is burning hot and she chokes and coughs on the smoke. Her mind wants to panic, remembering the house fire that almost ended Emony's life as a little girl, but Jadzia isn't Emony and she isn't going to hide and wait to be rescued. And when she reaches forward to pull Lenara into her arms just before the forcefield gives way, she isn't daredevil Torias who has no fear of his own mortality and loves Kahn.  
  
Safely tucked in a Jeffries tube while Eddington vents the engine room, Dax is simply Jadzia in that moment, crushing a shaking Lenara to her too tightly as they pour out their fears and promises to each other. "Never again," Jadzia whispers against Lenara's lips. "Never."  
  
 In the aftermath, circumstances pull them away from each other, but like Jadzia inevitably returns to Lenara's side. Bejal had looked smug when Jadzia had shown up at Lenara's quarters after her debriefing, thanking her for saving his sister's life while under the mistaken impression that he had convinced his sister against reassociation.  
  
"You can't be serious, Lenara," he says incredulously when that notion is dispelled by the sight of their two hands joined. "You'll be exiled."  
  
Jadzia and Lenara exchange a look, two pairs of blue eyes affirming their commitment. Bejal, incensed, grabs his sister by both shoulders and pulls her away, face twisted with anger.  
  
"Your symbiont will die, Lenara," he says urgently. "Kahn will die with you. Nilani will die with you, and Tharus and Jiane and Gerved and Zera and twelve others!" When he sees she is unmoved, he tries another tactic, jerking his head toward Jadzia without ever breaking eye contact with Lenara. "Dax will die too. You might be doing this for Nilani and Torias, but their legacies will be wiped out if you continue with this foolishness. Is that what you want?"  
  
Lenara pulls herself forcefully from his grasp. "Do you think I don't know what happens to Trill who reassociate, Bejal?" She shakes her head. "It's barbaric, what the Symbiosis Commission does. They put a whole set of lives and experiences inside you, and expect you to ignore anything that happened before!" She's screaming now, face reddened and eyes moist.  
  
"Oh, sure, it's perfectly fine to take up their old hobbies," she says bitterly. "Knitting or swimming or quantum warp theory, that's just _fine_. But don't you dare love who they loved! Well, Bejal, you can't just stop loving someone! Curzon may have run rather than face me after his Joining, but I know what I know, and Jadzia knows it too."  
  
Jadzia is transfixed by her, so like Nilani was on the last night of Torias' life when she had begged him not to be so reckless with his life. She'd had no idea Nilani had seen Curzon at the Zhea'en ambassador's ball, had felt the sting of rejection from someone who was notoriously averse to feelings of that caliber. It increased her respect for her former wife and the woman who now carried her symbiont tenfold.  
  
She steps forward, wrapping an arm securely around Lenara, both to comfort and claim her. Bejal shakes his head in disgust, but she pays it no mind. "The Symbiosis Commission is corrupt, Bejal," she says calmly, having experienced it across several of Dax's lifetimes. "They've endangered countless lives, including several of mine, to cover up their secrets and mistakes."  
  
When Bejal scoffs, she decides to reveal the truth about Joran. "When Torias died, Curzon wasn't my next host." Lenara freezes in her embrace, but she pushes on despite it. "They gave the Dax symbiont to an unstable man, who went on to kill half a dozen people before he was subdued and the symbiont removed from him. They suppressed Dax's memories and were willing to let me die when that block threatened our symbiosis."  
  
Bejal shakes his head. "What you're saying can't be true," he says, but he sounds shaken. "Only a very small percentage of the population is even capable of Joining. Such an individual -- even if they did somehow managed to be Joined to a symbiont -- would surely experience rejection and die. But the Commission would never--"  
  
"You have no idea what the Commission would do!" She shouts, abruptly letting go of Lenara to cross the distance between her and Bejal. "I _was_  the Commission, and I let my own husband's symbiont _die_  rather than reveal the existence of a parasitic species related to our own symbionts! My daughter _never_ forgave me for that!" She shakes her head and smiles sadly. " _I_ never forgave me for that."  
  
Now it's Lenara's turn to comfort Jadzia, wrapping gentle arms around her and pressing their foreheads together. They barely notice as a speechless Bejal quits the room. There is a lot to talk about.  
  
The hours pass and by the end of it, they're smiling despite the dried tear tracks on their faces. The past is the past, and Jadzia knows she would love Lenara even without Dax or Kahn, but the connection between their symbionts makes it impossible to deny.  
  
"I still worry," Lenara sighs, snuggling closer to Jadzia on the couch. "The Symbiosis Commission may be corrupt, but their rulings in these matters are absolute. We _will_ be the last hosts of Kahn and Dax."  
  
Jadzia smiles into her hair, remembering some of the worst times in her life and what she had learned from persevering through them. "Oh, I don't really think so." Lenara looks up at her curiously. "Remember what I told you about Verad? There must be others out there like him, desperate for a symbiont. Of course, we would never for settle for someone ruthless enough to steal one, but there are plenty of candidates who get washed out of the program who wouldn't care if their symbiont was a renegade. In fact, I think it'd be a draw for Trill who think like we do."  
  
Lenara considers this, still skeptical. "But our odds are still--"  
  
A chuckle interrupts her, for which Jadzia apologizes. "You know what I learned from the incident with Joran? Over _half_ the population is capable of Joining. The Commission doesn't want that to get out because there aren't enough symbionts for everyone, but it's good news for a couple of star-crossed renegades who aren't going to let some stuffy bureaucrats tear them apart."  
  
The response she receives to that is a delighted laugh, and she smothers it with a kiss. They may receive the censure of their government and never see the purple seas of their homeworld again, but now and forever, they're free to choose their own fate. And that fate is together.


	2. Epilogue

Jadzia and Lenara become Daeya and Nevan on the 65th anniversary of their official exile from Trill. It's one week past their anniversary, and Jadzia considers it to have been a better run than most could ever have hoped for, especially considering it's not really coming to an end.  
  
Two years prior, Lenara had been diagnosed with Dendrum's Syndrome, a degenerative nerve disorder which had taken her ability to walk from her not long after. If there was any hope to be found on Trill for treating the disease and pushing back the inevitable loss of mobility over time, they would never know. Still, even as Lenara weakly squeezed Jadzia's hand on the table beside her, there were no regrets for either of them. They would relinquish these forms and live forever together in Dax and Kahn.  
  
They could hardly ask for a better pair of hosts than Daeya and Nevan, who were as devoted to one another as Jadzia and Lenara. When Nevan had been rejected from the symbiosis program, Daeya had dropped out rather than progress without him despite having invested three years into it already. Jadzia still had contacts on their homeworld -- people who were not willing to openly rebel against the Commission, but sympathized with the growing number of rogue Joined Trill who were inspired by the tale of Dax and Kahn -- and they had put her in contact with the couple during her discreet inquiries after Lenara's diagnosis.  
  
According to their files, Daeya would have been given a symbiont for sure, and Nevan would be physically compatible so long as they found him worthy -- by her standards, not the Commission's. Months of communications back and forth finally culminating in a face-to-face meeting in the Dax-Kahn household in the Kendra Province of Bajor, not far from the home Jake Sisko had inherited from his father. But by that point, Jadzia and Lenara were already certain about the couple and their own future.  
  
It had been a balmy evening when Jadzia had taken Nevan aside and asked him to escort her around the garden. At the ripe old age of 97, she was still 4 years younger than Lenara and far more able bodied, but her age and infirmity was all too apparent next to the 25-year-old Nevan, on whose arm she leaned heavily during their stroll. A hesitant young man, he'd been drummed out of the program for "meekness," which Jadzia had personally discovered to be simply a gentle disposition, lacking the fiercely competitive edge most program applicants had. A symbiont would overwhelm his personality, his file had stated.  
  
Jadzia scoffed at that notion, telling him so over the quiet sounds of bugs and small animals that went about their lives during the Bajoran evening. "Jadzia was a nerdy young thing," she had explained, giving him a broad smile that had been the downfall of men like him when she was still in the flush of youth. "Dax helped me to lift my voice, but never drowned me out. If I could handle Dax after a lifetime with Curzon, you'll do just fine with it."  
  
Nevan stopped short at that, causing Jadzia to stumble as their arms were still entwined. Flustered, he righted her and apologized profusely. "I thought you intended for--for Daeya to get Dax," he said, stumbling over his words a little. "She's the better candidate for Dax. She always knows what to say, and everyone loves her."  
  
"That's why she'd be better for Kahn," Jadzia said, patting him on the shoulder. "And you for Dax. Someday you'll understand." They hadn't exchanged any more words on the subject that night, simply finishing their walk and joining Lenara and Daeya inside, where Jadzia settled down on the couch next to her wife of many years after Lenara had no doubt had a similar conversation with the young woman.  
  
Now Jadzia turns her head from Lenara in the operating room, to where Nevan is watching her from the next table over with despondent eyes. It is the last time they will see each other precisely like this. She will live within him for the rest of his life, grieved and loved as Jadzia and Dax grieve and love the hosts who came before.  
  
Two doctors, recommended specifically by Julian for their skill and discretion, enter the room, scrubbed and prepped for this brief and important surgery. The time has come, and Jadzia returns her focus to Lenara in these last moments they have together. It has all been planned with exactitude; the symbionts will be removed simultaneously by the doctors. In their advanced age and after a lifetime of connection to Dax and Kahn, it's likely only seconds will pass before Jadzia and Lenara slip away, while their lifetimes of memories are transferred to Daeya and Nevan.  
  
It's not an end, but another beginning for them. She doesn't feel the incision the doctor makes to access the symbiont in her pouch, but does when the connection between them is severed, hearing a gasp from Lenara at the precise moment. The lights begin to dim around her as the shine ebbs in her wife's eyes, and in her last moment she imagines what still lays ahead of them, together.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a line in Emily Dickinson's poem, I cannot live with You.
> 
> Feel free to check out my blog or connect with me at betazoa.tumblr.com!


End file.
